Save A Life: Spit In A Cup

I am on the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register.  They organise bone marrow transplants for people with leukemia and they have a new campaign, asking each potential donor (me) to recruit four new potential donors (you) over the next four months (then).  It’s called 4×4 – possibly the only time a 4×4 is believed to have saved the planet instead of killing it.

It couldn’t be easier to register: no blood samples, no visits to the doctor; just spit in one of these 

   and send it off.

There are over 400, 000 donors on the register but that’s not enough as only half of the patients waiting for a transplant are a match.  The campaign is trying to up the number of donors to a million.  The criteria for joining the register are as follows:

• be 18 – 40
• and reasonably healthy

It’s simple to join:

• complete an online application form in 15 minutes
• give a saliva sample – don’t worry, you don’t spit in an envelope; they’ll send you a small kit

The register is desperately in need of men (aren’t we all?) and people from ethnic minorities in particular, so come on, stop being a wuss and spit in a cup for your Auntie Tilly and a whole bunch of dying people who will be eternally grateful to you.

By the way, don’t think you can get out of it if you are not resident in the UK: many countries have their own register.  I hope at the very least you are blood donors and, hopefully, registered organ donors.

And if I still haven’t convinced you, think of the poor little boy who died and gave his name to the register; his mother worked tirelessly to set it up and the least we can do is spit in a cup for them. 

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And in other news

Biggest non-story of the year: The Sun announces that Joe McElderry is gay.  Tell us something we don’t know.   Better yet, tell us something we want to know, like when his album is coming out.

Tilly Bud’s Got The X-Factor As Well

I have to say a big ‘thank you’ to Joe Mcelderry and the X-Factor: they bumped yesterday’s stats by a third.  With the show just finishing and the winner declared, people have obviously been Googling the names and accidentally coming up with me.  The Hub is always telling me to talk about current affairs to trap people into reading me, and he has been proved right.  Again.  He’s so irritating.   I’m going to have to seamlessly work in X-Factor references in today’s blog to replicate yesterday’s figures, in the hope that readers who stumble across me will impulsively subscribe to The Laughing Housewife (JUST ADD YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN THE WIDGET ON THE LEFT-HAND SIDE) and be unable to escape.  Please tell me if you notice the references; but I’m sure you won’t.

Today’s news:

Spud Bud is poorly and staying home from school – oops, excuse me – I’ve just remembered I was supposed to phone and tell them that; I’ll be back in a Rachel Adedeji… 

Where was I?  Spud is gutted because his English class is performing a mini-pantomime today, and he is in it.  Lloyd Daniels spent last night making a wicked witch sock puppet, complete with battered hat and broomstick, to replace an absent friend who is miffed because he has to go to the funeral today of a friend of his mother’s, who he has never met (the friend; not his mother).  Spud was chuffed with the puppet and excited about performing.  He loves performing: for the first eleven years of his life he was going to be an actor and set his parents up in Kandy Rain.  Now it’s all rugby and writing, and we have to move to a hovel in our retirement. 

He woke up this morning and complained of not feeling Jamie Archer, but he was determined to go to school because he didn’t want to let down his friends.  He ate his breakfast and got ready and I gave him two paracetemol, which made him feel a bit John and Edward Grimes.  He was determined to soldier on but the whole time he was trying not to weep over his aching bones and soggy bottom.  I asked him if he wanted me to make him stay home and he didn’t deny it so I sent him up to bed.  He was down again just minutes later, upset and saying again that he couldn’t let down his friends.  I let him go because I was confident he would be back; and I was right (it’s not irritating when I do it).  He had missed the bus because it had taken him so long to get to the bus stop, and he came in and went straight upstairs, stopping only for a little cry and a comforting hug from his Rikki Loney and to vomit into a fortunately-placed Stacey Solomon.

I went up five minutes later with a cup of tea and bottle of Olly Murs and to check on him, and came down again to discover Toby had pooped in three places in the distress of it all.  I cleaned up the Joe McElderry by the kitchen; the one by the hall cabinet; and the one on the door mat; then collapsed in exhaustion on the Danyl Johnson from all the hand washing  and was forced to watch television all morning to recover, instead of doing the planned housework.

Although it’s a shame Spud will miss fun activities, at least he’s not missing anything important, it being the last week of school.  They break up on Lucie Jones the 18th.  But it’s better to be ill now than Miss Frank.

What did I tell you?  Seamless!

Joe’s Got The X-Factor!

I was thrilled last night that Joe won the X-Factor.  He has a wonderfully melodic voice and seems like a genuinely nice guy.  I felt sorry for Olly, but he seems like another nice guy and was gracious in defeat; and these days, runners-up tend to do as well if not better than winners, so I’m crossing my fingers for him.  Poor Stacey went out on Saturday night.  I thought she gave the performance of the weekend in her duet with Michael Bublé.  They had real chemistry, and she looked fabulous in that dress – for the first time in years I felt nostalgic for my figure because I have never worn a dress like that, and now it’s too late.  Still, I won’t give up hope, because Michael Bublé still hasn’t met me yet.

What annoys me is the nay-sayers: I have read around the blogs this morning, and so many people are complaining about the blandness of the X-Factor and that type of show and how it’s the rise of mediocrity, that it makes me wonder who of the ten million who voted last night dares to disagree.  Well – I do, being one of the 6.1 million people who voted for Joe to win.  There have always been tv talent shows; the X-Factor is simply the latest incarnation.  Mark Lawson (a critic with whom I usually agree) irritated me with this: ‘…the victory of McElderry and Cowell is a defeat for admirers of high-quality or public service television…’  I don’t think talent shows come much slicker than the X-Factor; do you?  It is high-quality television in that it is well-made and entertaining.  Yes, it’s not brain-stretching telly, but so what?  It’s Saturday night and I want to settle down with my family and enjoy myself without having to think.  I would also say it is public service television: the 200,000 who applied to be on it and the twenty million who watched the final would probably agree with me.  This is just snobbery: what does Mr Lawson think Shakespeare was writing, if not entertainment for the masses?  And what would I, Mark Lawson and the 9,200,000 Google results I’ve just found have to write about this morning if it didn’t exist?

Britain’s got the X-Factor! 

 

I Have Saved Myself £12billion

I can’t say I’m impressed by the government’s plans to save £12billion: if I understand Sky News correctly, they simply have to stop spending.  If it’s that simple, why has it taken so long to do?  I’m really not convinced by the argument; after all, when I cut up my credit cards last week, did that mean I had saved £12billion myself?  No, I didn’t; I’m not going to see that money in my savings account anytime soon, am I?  I’m just not going to spend any more, and I’m going to be paying off past debts for a long time to come, just like my government.  And neither of us has any gold reserves with which to make the process easier.

But on to the REALLY important news: Joe McElderry is in the X-Factor final.  Another two flawless performances this weekend.  I was glad to see Olly Murs and Stacey Solomon in the final as well, though sorry that Danyl had to go; I loved his rendition of And I Am Telling You in the first live show.  It was a strong contest this year.  Oddly, however, there were no obvious standout performances as in other years: Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke, for example, had some cracking shows in which they were clear frontrunners; and Ray Quinn was brilliant when he sang My Way in Leona’s year.  Joe has been consistently good, but not electrifying.  But I’ll still be voting for him to win next week: I can afford it now that I have £12billion to spare.

Poor Lloyd

Poor Lloyd hasn’t got the X-Factor any more.  I quite liked him, and I loved his version of Bleeding Love, but he was up against some tough competition.  He got much better the last couple of weeks so it’s a shame he was voted off, but there can be only one winner – Joe McElderry, of course.  He was superb this weekend – more superb than usual.  If you didn’t watch it – and I hope you’ve got a good excuse, like you live on another continent or something – then check him out here: Sorry and Magic.  My favourite of his performances, however, came last week.  Watch this: Sun.

I have finally learned the meaning of housewives’ favourite.